On that note let us discuss the Australian Collins Class Submarine fiasco.

Here is a pic of the bulbous bow'd one.

She's not very streamlines but apparently she nice and quiet when she has to be.

Quote:

Defence admits $5 billion in hardware over-runs

Reporter: Jeremy Thompson

A story that has become all-too familiar to taxpayers - defence hardware which ends up costing far more than was originally bargained for and is delivered years late. After the debacle of the Collins class submarines, which needed major modifications before they could be commissioned, changes were made to the defence procurement process designed to prevent just such massive cost and delivery over-runs. But last night, in response to Opposition questions, the Defence Department admitted that a series of large contracts had run over $5 billion over budget and in some cases, were years behind schedule. While the Government argues that the cost blow-out is simply due to the weakness of the Australian dollar, critics maintain our defence mandarins have set their sights too high rather than buying equipment "off the shelf".

The story was that it was a dog. A complete dog. Then, through sheer coincidence, I got to know "Da Joo" who works for Australian Defence Industries. "X" is a born and bred Israeli fighter pilot and software engineer from the Kibbutz.

(ADI BTW is a private company who I cannot find an owner list for. I would'nt be surprised if it was Israeli owned. Anyone care to find out? Also, note this interesting article on them from the "Green Left".) Source

The weapons and sensor systems were ALL American. However, the Yanks refused to allow the internals to be serviced here in Oz and instead they had to be shipped back to the States for repair and replacement. As you can see, we have a very trusted relationship with our great ally;-)

Refusing this ridiculous set up...our commanders turned to our other trusted ally...Israel. We stripped out the ENTIRE internals at huge cost and then others got busy writing the hundreds of thousands of line of computer code for the sensor and weapons systems.

In the end Australia now has a competant and fairly good little sub to blow up the various Indonesian Dug Out Canoes and Chinese landing craft that are surely about to invade at any moment;-)

But...we can be rest assured that China knows EVERY little bit of info on the Collins Class Sub.

China has probably bought Israeli equipment to counter it and now we can go to Israel to buy more equipment to counter the Chinese counter to our new shiny sub. So the arms selling game goes.

Given the problems with the Oz side of the "Joint Strike Fighter" we can be ASSURED that our trusted ally is shifty about allowing big mouthed Australian technicians anywhere near the aircraft electronics and missile internals. Such is the depth of the friendship.

Americans are always complaining about the laxadasical attitude Australians have towards security. Coming from the friends of APAIC and the Pentagon Dov Zacheim fiasco the words pot calling kettle black come to mind.

Quote:

The sticking point is the United States has not yet agreed to share sensitive technology for the aircraft.Source

Is there a theme running here?

THe JSF is shaping up to be yet another cost blowout disaster but with Europe/U.S and Israel bolstering China's high tech (Russia is a medium player in the high tech end) Oz will have no choice but to spend up big to counter the Chinese threat...brought on by the same people we buy our stuff from...who are supposedly our allies...get the irony? What a fucking scam.